Fort
by Tah the Trickster
Summary: "Fair warning, though, I haven't built a fort since...I dunno. Not in the past thousand years, for sure." "Well, you were certainly overdue for it, then," Bubblegum determined. Marceline snorted. "If you say so." Just a Bubbline fluff-fic.


"You _sure_ you're eighteen?"

Princess Bubblegum wrinkled her nose at the vampire's dry inquiry, shooting her a _look._ Marceline only gave her a fanged grin, holding up her hands in surrender. "_Quite_ sure." Then, dropping the irate glare to a more affectionate look, she reached up to grab a pale, gray hand and tugged the floating vampire closer down. "Come _on,_ Marceline, it'll be fun!"

The vampire queen scratched her head with her free hand. "You're serious about this, then." It wasn't quite a question, more an amused (if not bewildered) statement.

"_Yes_."

Marceline gave a rasping little chuckle at the huff her girlfriend gave her. "Fine, fine, fine." She allowed the princess to tug her down until she lighted on the ground. Deep crimson eyes surveyed the "supplies" in front of them. "Fair warning, though, I haven't built a fort since..." she trailed off, thinking hard on it. "I dunno. Not in the past thousand years, for sure."

"Well, you were certainly overdue for it, then," Bubblegum determined. Marceline snorted.

"If you say so."

She retrieved her hand back from the princess and resumed floating. The immortal picked up a nearby sheet and looked quizzically at the pink female. "I don't even know how to start with this."

Bubblegum simply laughed and strode over to take the blanket from her. "Typically, we find a large, heavy piece of furniture to use as the anchoring piece of the fort."

Marceline glanced around. _Everything_ in the room looked pretty flimsy to her, but then again, as a vampire, _most_ things looked pretty flimsy to her. "So... your bed, I guess?"

"Precisely." The younger woman shot her girlfriend a tiny smirk. "See, it's coming back to you." Marceline made a face at her and she laughed.

"Keep it up and I'll leave," the vampire pseudo-threatened, jabbing Bonnibel in the shoulder. They both knew she wouldn't, though. With the limited time that Marceline could spend outside of her cave and how busy Bubblegum was, there was no way that she'd leave so soon after arriving.

In any case, Marceline helped to spread one edge of the sheet over the edge of the bed. "Pass me some pillows," she told the candy princess distractedly. "This isn't gonna stay here unless it's weighted down." She looked up in time to see the younger woman give her a knowing smirk at her sudden recollection of fort-building. A hint of a flush touched her cheeks and she frowned. "Bonni, if _any_ of this gets out, I'm gonna let Finn know that you weren't screaming because I _scared_ you." The princess' smirk whisked away with a genuine look of horror at the memory of _that_ particular incident, a scarlet blush flaring in her face. Then it was Marceline's turn to smirk.

"You _wouldn't_." Marceline simply craned a dark brow. Bubblegum winced. "You would." Marceline grinned and her girlfriend sighed. "_Fine._ I wasn't planning on telling anyone else, anyway."

"Well, now I _know_ you won't." And she had to duck a pillow aimed directly at her face. She grinned impishly at the still-blushing princess. "Thanks, I was waiting for you to give me the pillow. I think I need another one, though; these aren't very heavy." She took the second one hard in the chest, grunting at the impact. The pillows might not have been particularly heavy, but at that force and close range, it was a good hit. "_Thanks._"

As Marceline busied herself with weighing down the edge of the sheet, Bubblegum pulled a chair closer to drape the other edge of the sheet over it. "Did you get that side weighted down?" the princess asked her, somewhat distracted as she tried to get the sheet folded over properly.

"Yeah."

"Can you pull some more chairs over here? We'll need them."

"Why am I doing all the heavy lifting?" the vampire complained good-naturedly, bringing several chairs back to the site of the fort-in-progress. It didn't matter to her, not really. As previously stated - vampire. Super strength. She could probably lift up the entire bed with one hand if she felt like it. Still, if _she_ didn't give Bonnibel a hard time, who would?

"Because it's faster if _you_ do it." Apparently the princess didn't take note of the fact that she'd really only been kidding. Ah, well. Wouldn't be the first time.

Choosing to change the topic rather than explain that, Marceline eyed the tiny little fort they were working on and snorted softly. "You _do_ have more sheets, right? 'Cause this..." she made a vague circular gesture at the single sheet hung between the chair and the bed. "This is kinda pitiful."

Bubblegum shot the vampire a gently scolding look, like she was mentally berating Marceline for assuming she would be ill-prepared for the venture she herself had requested. "Of _course_ I do. They're on the bed." She pointed at the neatly-folded bedding in question. Marceline hadn't noticed them; they were nestled amongst the various pillows the princess owned.

Marceline waved her off. "Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a twist." The princess huffed; her girlfriend just grinned.

As the pair continued to haphazardly balance sheets over carefully-placed chairs (Marceline got the feeling that the princess had planned on the placement of the chairs earlier to "optimize space" or whatever) the vampire queen felt herself relax. She still privately thought that building a fort was _kinda_ childish and a _little bit_ stupid, but she _was_ doing it with her girlfriend and she'd already ensured that no one _else_ would ever hear about it, so she supposed it really didn't matter.

Besides, if she was being honest, it was... kinda fun.

"I think this will work nicely," Bubblegum decided eventually, hands on her hips as she surveyed the structure of sheets and chairs. Marceline floated lower, draping her arms over pink shoulders and resting her chin on the princess' head.

"_I_ thought it woulda worked nicely about twenty minutes ago," she snorted just to be difficult. The grounded woman chuckled, turning her body and tugging the undead queen lower. Her soft, sweet breath tickled Marceline's cool lips.

"_You_ have _no_ imagination," she teased before closing the gap between them. Marceline allowed the contact with a low, appreciative rumble. The kiss was only a short one, since they weren't exactly in prime positions for a longer one, but it was enough to bring a fanged smile to the vampire's lips.

Still, Marceline _did_ have a reputation to uphold. "I have _plenty_ of imagination, _Bonnibel_, I just don't tend to use it for building _forts._"

"Fine," the princess allowed, more amused than anything else. "We're almost done now anyways, so you don't need _that_ much more imagination anyways." She extracted herself from Marceline's grip and walked back over to the fort. Bubblegum then crouched down and crawled in. "Can you please pass the pillows on my bed to me under here?"

"Yeah, sure." The older woman floated over to the bed and began chucking the pillows into the fort, not looking to see where in the fort the princess even was. But, hey, Bonni was mostly just laughing and yelping at the onslaught of pillows anyways, so it apparently didn't even matter. "And how much more do we have to work on this thing? I thought you said this would 'work nicely.'" Her impression of her younger girlfriend was quite good, honestly.

"Well, now we have to finish up the sides, obviously," came the young woman's muffled voice from under the fort. "While you're still out there, can you get the comforter and box of candles? We'll need them in here and it'll be easier to get them in here before we finish up the fort."

"Bossy." It was spoken more affectionately than cruelly, which was the only reason that Bubblegum didn't protest it. Marceline grabbed the items anyways and joined her under the fort. The vampire looked around, mildly surprised. "Huh." It had _way_ more space than she'd thought. "Not bad, Bonnibel."

The princess beamed at the compliment, but still half-dismissed it with, "You helped, remember?"

"Are you really going to deny that you probably spent time planning on how to build this thing?"

Bubblegum's face went a shade pinker than normal. "...C'mon, help me finish closing up these last few spaces." And she indicated the mostly-complete wall of pillows that closed up the space left between the floor and the suspended sheets.

The queen gave a long, dramatic sigh. "_Fine._" Still, between the two of them, the process of pillow-wall-building only took a few minutes, and they were soon closed in with only a single entrance/exit left open. Marceline eyed the pillow walls warily. "Bonni, you sure that's gonna stay?"

"Hm?" She looked up from where she'd begun unfolding the thick, padded comforter onto the floor. "I don't see why they wouldn't. Provided no one kicks them or anything, the structural integrity of the _rest_ of the fort should -"

"Alright, alright, alright," Marceline broke in with a little snort and a shake of her head. "I was just making sure. Don't go all _scientist_ on me."

"_Hmph_." Bonni wrinkled her nose at the barely-levitating vampire. "I _am_ a scientist."

"Yeah, well, I'm not." She shifted over to begin placing the candles all about the inside of the fort, where they'd be least likely to catch anything on fire. "_Please_ tell me we're done now," Marceline half-teased half-seriously begged as she dispersed the candles.

"Almost." Marceline huffed, turning to face Bubblegum with folded arms. The princess just smiled, beckoning for the vampire to join her on the unfolded blanket. For the second time that night, Marceline quirked a brow at her younger counterpart, but ended up joining her over there anyways, settling in the air just centimeters above Bubblegum's lap.

"_Yes?_" the vampire queen drawled, drawing out the last letter in a low hiss.

"We still need the candles lit," the princess noted, glancing around the fort as though she didn't notice the vampire's proximity, as though it wasn't affecting her _at all._ "You wouldn't happen to have any matches or -"

A roll of deep crimson eyes, a halfhearted wave of the hand, and Bonnibel yelped quietly as all the candles in their fort suddenly flared to life. "Vampire, babe, remember?" Marceline teased, deadly-sharp fangs glinting faintly in the sudden candlelight.

"Of course," Bubblegum muttered in a vaguely amused tone. Her pink hands came up, gripping denim-clad hips, pulling Marceline entirely into her lap. If the vampire thought anything of it, she said nothing, just wrapping her legs about the smaller girl's waist. The two were nose-to-nose now. "Now tell me you didn't have a good time building a fort with me," the princess playfully ordered, a content little smile on her face.

A serpentine tongue flicked out at Bubblegum's sweet lips, eliciting a little squeal of surprise, and Marceline smirked just a hair. "Why would I do that? I had a good time," she declared, as though she'd been insisting that she _would_ all along.

Bubblegum just scoffed quietly. "Uh-_huh._" She didn't bother saying anything else, pink fingers tangling into silky black locks, pulling the vampire close. Their lips met softly, gently nuzzling against each other. One of them purred quiet loudly into the kiss.

"That was _you,_" the vampire accused lowly when they parted to let Bubblegum breathe again. There was no way that near-pleading sound had come out of _her,_ certainly.

The princess giggled breathlessly. It most certainly had _not_ been her and they _both_ knew it, but Marceline liked to try to keep up her reputation of being a bad girl, so she'd let her have the illusion. "Sure, baby." The vampire queen frowned at what she saw as being patronized. She opened her mouth to complain but the princess darted in and Marceline's mouth was then too occupied to voice the complaint.

The vampire queen melted into the deep kiss after a moment of silent protest at being shut up before she even began. She gave another little groan into the kiss, sinking easily into the taste of her younger girlfriend, into the scent of her, the feel of her. Finally Marceline relented entirely, wrapping her arms around the young woman's shoulders to keep her close.

Bubblegum, for her part, nearly smirked when she felt her girlfriend relax entirely. Her hands slid down to the hem of Marceline's shirt, slipping under the black cloth to caress the small of her back, the flesh cool and supple under her fingers. Marceline either didn't notice or just wasn't responding to the touch, though, and well... Bubblegum wasn't going to take that.

Her hands slid around to the front, delicately touching the vampire's more sensitive abdomen - still no response.

Fine. She'd have to be a little... _bolder._

Marceline jerked sharply, breaking away with a near shriek when those soft, warm hands slid higher up her front, her cheeks impressively scarlet at the brazen touches. "Bonni, _wh-_" Her deep red eyes narrowed suspiciously at the smug look the princess had fixed her with. "...Did you seriously want to build a fort together just to _sleep with me_ in it?"

"Possibly." Her tone gave nothing away; her wicked little smirk gave everything away. Marceline wasn't sure whether to laugh or roll her eyes.

"Bonnibel Bubblegum, you are the _biggest_ dork I have _ever_ dated." The princess merely raised a brow. The older woman sighed, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Oh, _fine._" She glanced around. "...No reason to burn the palace down, though."

A wave of the hand, and the fort went black in a sizzle of extinguished flame.

_**A/N:**_ This one's for my bud, Harley. LOVE YOU HARLEY.


End file.
